The present invention relates to a Drone Control System, and more particularly, a method to remotely pilot an air vehicle. A drone is a pilotless aircraft operated by remote control. Drones are used in many military applications as aerial targets and for other purposes such as reconnaissance.
The present invention is a remotely piloted aircraft, or drone, that was originally designed to be an operable aircraft and accommodate a pilot as necessary. The related art of drone design and development has typically adopted two distinct approaches. The first approach, similar to the present invention, is to convert an existing aircraft into a drone. Traditional aircraft to drone conversions have required extensive modifications to the existing aircraft. The development of additional and unique hardware and software systems, both on the aircraft and in a ground station are often required. Further, many aircraft to drone conversions also require the development of new or modified aircraft control laws. These controls laws, or algorithms, are part of the additional hardware/software systems on board the drone and are used to govern the drone operations. Due primarily to the aforementioned modifications, aircraft to drone conversions often become expensive and technically complex. For this reason, each aircraft to drone conversion has typically been a relatively unique development effort. There have been no generic drone conversion kits that could be simply used on multiple types of aircraft. Likewise, once an aircraft has been converted to a drone using conventional methods, it is impracticle and cost prohibitive to convert the drone back to an operable aircraft due to the fact that the modifications were so extensive. That is to say, there are no known removable and transferrable aircraft to drone conversion packages which would simplify the conversion process.
The second approach to the design and development of drones is to design and manufacture the drone from scratch. These vehicles are thus not designed for a pilot on board the vehicle. These vehicles are commonly known as Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs), and Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). Both UAVs and RPVs are vehicles which are originally designed without a pilot on board.
The typical drone system consists of an airborne vehicle, or airborne system, in combination with a ground station. The ground station is adapted to provide positive control of the drone throughout the flight envelope of the air vehicle. In addition, appropriate electrical or mechanical devices are also controlled through the ground station. These electrical/mechanical devices are used to actuate things such as landing gear, wing flaps, slats, wheel brakes, speed brakes, nose wheel steering, and a variety of other electrical connections used for commanding the air vehicle.
As stated above, the present invention is a remotely piloted aircraft, or drone, that was originally designed to be an operable aircraft and accommodate a pilot as necessary. Of particular interest in the present invention, is the method of controlling the drone. The related technology concerning the method of controlling a remotely piloted aircraft typically employs a central command computer. The central command computers used in related technologies are physically located at the ground station which transmits digitally telemetered command signals to the remotely piloted aircraft thereby controlling the aircraft control equipment. The remotely piloted aircraft or other air vehicles can be adapted to process these signals to execute a preprogrammed flight plan. Alternatively, the central command computer can be adapted to interface with a pilot or other ground operator, thereby allowing the remotely piloted vehicle to execute real time commands.
Other methods known in the art of controlling remotely piloted vehicles involve the substitution of a voice recognition control signal with the normal digital telemetered control signal. Some of the aforementioned methods of controlling the remotely piloted vehicle also incorporate visual information transmitted from the remotely piloted vehicle to augment the controlling scenario.
The Drone Control System disclosed herein is designed to greatly simplify the technical complexity of aircraft to drone conversions, while at the same time significantly reducing the costs associated with the more traditional conversion approach. Further, the present invention provides a removable and transferable drone configuration that can be transferred to other aircraft types. It will minimize the technical complexity of the modifications to the existing aircraft that would be required; this in turn allows the aircraft to remain fully man-rated with no system or performance degradation. Lastly, development time for this Drone Control System is drastically reduced over the traditional approaches.